by Tara Moss
‘You better tell Flynn to get that woman on a leash,’ came the snarl from over Jimmy’s shoulder.
Jimmy was unprepared, and dropped the chocolate bar onto his bulging belly. It did not have far to fall.
‘Ah, woman?’ Jimmy mumbled.
‘Your mate’s girlfriend is back in town, isn’t she? Vanderwall?’
Jimmy opened the top drawer of his desk, plonked the remains of his chocolate bar inside and closed it with a squeak. He couldn’t enjoy his snack in Hunt’s presence.
Jimmy crossed his meaty arms. ‘Huh?’ he replied, purposely vague.
Detective Senior Sergeant Bradley Hunt was a royal annoyance. He had an exaggerated chin like a hero in a Marvel comic, and at present he had that chin tilted high, looking down his nose at Senior Constable Cassimatis as if he were a rookie. Fuck you, I’ve been here longer than you, knob jockey. Despite having done much less time in the police force, Hunt had rapidly risen above Jimmy’s rank. Jimmy was not a fan of Hunt’s. And Andy’s departure had meant that Jimmy had to put up with the likes of Hunt on a more regular basis.
‘Macaylay Vanderwall is back in town,’ Hunt stated.
It’s Makedde, you idiot.
Jimmy had no intention of confirming the fact. Mak and Jimmy had their differences, and she and his best friend had only just split, but he had a soft spot for her. Always had. The last thing he had any desire to do was feed information about her or Andy to this halfwit undeserving arselicker. For starters, it was none of his business where she was. But most important, the guy was a royal tool.
He could feel Hunt’s eyes burning into the back of his head. He was waiting for a reply.
‘Yeah?’ Jimmy muttered. ‘Oh.’ He unfolded his arms and hunched over his small desk, pretending to take an interest in his paperwork again.
‘She better not try to pull any more stunts like last year.’
Stunts? Like nearly getting your mates charged with murder? That kind of stunt, you arsehole?
Jimmy said nothing. He was no good at office politics, but he knew enough not to say what he was thinking this time.
‘She’s been hanging round outside their house. The Cavanaghs. On her motorbike. I can’t imagine what she’s trying to prove.’
Oh, Mak. Mak, Mak, Mak…
Makedde had attracted trouble for as long as Jimmy had known her, but she had really put herself in it when she had decided to set herself in the sights of one of the most powerful families in Australia. Why she would be baiting them now, he could not imagine either. It had been Jimmy himself whom she had called in a whisper from inside the Cavanaghs’ palatial Darling Point mansion during Damien Cavanagh’s lavish thirtieth-birthday celebrations the previous year, to say that she had ‘happened across’ the room where a hapless Jane Doe had been killed some days earlier. Sure, Makedde had all the right answers in the subsequent interrogation—how she had come to the A-list party as a guest, and it was only when she happened across the room with a particular Brett Whiteley painting on the wall that she realised it was the same room that matched video footage of the crime scene. But all her cleverness wasn’t going to keep her safe if she kept making trouble for herself.
Mak had not been on the guest list. She had known exactly what she was doing. But all that was over last year. What did she think she was doing now?
‘If she knows what’s good for her, she’ll go right back to the States where she came from.’
‘Detective Cunt, she’s Canadian, actually,’ Jimmy corrected him quietly, under his breath.
‘Did you say something?’
Jimmy stood, pushing his chair out with a scraping sound across the floor. He walked off with his paperwork. ‘I said I need another coffee.’
Hunt watched him go. He didn’t bother to congratulate him on his breakthrough in the Macleay St burglary he’d been so keen for them to solve.
CHAPTER 17
Mak turned onto the road to St Ives, distracted, her hands gripping the wheel too tightly. She was thinking about Andy. He had saved her life once, years before. She had really believed in him then. And now? Now it was over. There was much hostility and hurt between them.
Horrible.
And then there was Bogey.
He was in town for a week for meetings to sell his new furniture range. After getting over the shock of their initial reacquaintance, she was starting to quite like the idea of him being there. Who wouldn’t like a home-cooked breakfast? A compliment? A handsome face to wake up to? She hoped he didn’t leave, now that he knew that Loulou and Drayson had double-booked them at Loulou’s little apartment. Would he stay on the couch?
Don’t rebound.
Humphrey—or Bogey as he preferred to be called—had been the focus of some considerable romantic thought for a spell the previous year. He was unlike any man she had met. In addition to his previous life as a coffin-maker, he had played guitar in Drayson’s band, Electric Possum, and even worked as a masseur. He had a small shop in Melbourne where he designed and sold his own handmade custom furniture, and was getting his hands into more than just pine. In fact, he’d got his hands onto her, too. It had only been a platonic massage, of course. She had complained of a backache, and he had graciously offered to help. But those hands had been memorable. Never mind that she had touched herself that night with a private lust coursing through her, and had taken mere minutes to shudder to guilty orgasm with the thought of those hands of his. She was still living with Andy at the time, so there had been no room to explore that particular romantic possibility.
Things were different now.
Here it is.
Mak slowed down. She found herself feeling uncharacteristically anxious as she eyed the Murphy family’s stucco home. She passed the Hart household not eight doors down. Glenise Hart didn’t appear to be at home, and the street was quiet except for a man in a cap pulling up to the kerb half a block away, and a little kid running around a yard with a puppy.
Try to keep it about Adam. For now…
She genuinely wanted to do the best possible job with Adam’s case. She wanted to find him quickly and safely. The rest was another issue. That she hoped to be dealing with soon…
Mak got out of the car, adjusted her jacket—and ‘button’—and looked over her shoulder. She walked towards the house, feeling all the moisture evaporate from her mouth. She knocked, and stood gripping her briefcase in a trembling hand. She swallowed hard.
He’s just a kid. Like any other.
An attractive woman of about forty opened the door, blonde and smiling pleasantly.
‘Hi. I’m sorry to bother you. Is Mr Murphy in?’
‘Kevin isn’t in at the moment. I am his wife, Linda,’ she said, still smiling, only now there was a flash of curiosity there, concern even.
‘Hi, Linda. It’s lovely to meet you.’ She extended a hand, and Linda took it. ‘My name is Makedde Vanderwall. I’m a private investigator.’ She braced herself for whatever response this introduction brought.
The woman’s jaw dropped. ‘You are…her? Wow! Makedde!’ She said Mak’s name perfectly. ‘It’s my pleasure to meet you. Please, please come in.’
Mak stepped inside and followed Linda down a hallway of plush carpet to a cream-and-brown kitchen.
‘I’ll get you some tea.’
‘No, thank you. Just water.’ Mak had already decided she wasn’t interested in tea any more. If she hadn’t had so much of Glenise Hart’s tea, she might have just gone to bed, instead of feeling wired and emotional and coming dangerously close to sleeping with her ex.
Linda handed her a glass. ‘I’ve heard so much about you. Kevin is so grateful. Really. What you did for Tobias was incredible. You gave him a new life.’
Mak smiled. She found herself feeling proud. ‘I was wondering if I could possibly meet him. Is Tobias here?’
‘Sure. I’ll get him. I’m sure he’ll be happy to finally meet you.’
It was, in some ways, extraordinary that the two had not already m
et. She had been instrumental in his release from custody, and in clearing his name. He had been a street kid, and he had a chance at a normal life now, in part thanks to her investigative efforts. Mak shook her head. She had been back in Sydney only a few days, and already she had a job and she was finally meeting Tobias. She was doing fine, even if things were tough in her personal life.
There was movement in the hall. Eventually a figure emerged. Tobias. Mak was pleasantly shocked by his appearance. By her calculation, a year had passed since he was put on the path to rehabilitation, but already Tobias looked nothing like the photographs she had seen in his file. He had put on weight. He had got a haircut. And underneath all that long greasy hair that used to obscure his face, there was a normal, if fragile-looking, seventeen-year-old.
‘Hi,’ the boy said.
Tobias wore grey school trousers and a white shirt, so different from his ragged, dirty street clothes. His hands were dug deep into the trouser pockets. He looked at Makedde for only a moment, and then stared down at his bare toes, as if they held some great interest.
‘Tobias. It is really nice to finally meet you.’
‘Please sit down and talk with Makedde, Tobias,’ Linda said, gesturing to a chair.
‘Could I perhaps speak to him alone for a few minutes?’ Mak said to his stepmother in a low voice. Linda nodded and smiled. ‘Just don’t make him late for school.’
Tobias and Makedde sat side by side in the colour-coordinated kitchen. It would be somewhat of a contrast to the soup kitchen he would have eaten in at the city mission. When he used to eat. Heroin did not do much for the appetite.
‘How is it here, Tobias? Do you like it?’
He nodded. ‘Okay. Good. Yeah.’
‘You look pretty happy.’
‘Yeah.’ This seemed an honest response. Perhaps it was the shy version of jumping up and down and screaming with joy because you are no longer locked away for murder.
‘That’s really good,’ Mak said gently.
He looked up at her and searched her face for a moment. ‘They said that you went away.’
‘I did. Just to Canberra for a while, but it didn’t work out, so I’m back to work here in Sydney again,’ she replied.
Although he was seventeen, Tobias seemed, in some ways, younger. His heavy drug use and the problems of street life, and no doubt his emotional traumas as well, seemed to have slowed his social development subtly. He was introverted, but there was something more as well, a kind of hesitation and bewilderment in his manner.
‘Did you miss your mum?’ he asked her.
Makedde’s throat tightened. Her mother had died of cancer when she was a teenager. Why would Tobias know anything about that?
‘Is that why you came back?’ he continued, when she failed to reply.
The penny dropped. ‘I’m from Canada, actually, which is why I have this funny accent. I get back to Canada to visit my dad every year, but my mother passed away when I was about your age. A bit younger, actually.’
Her hands were so swollen and puffy. Warm, puffy hands, and the sound of the respirator…
Tobias frowned, as if he might have said the wrong thing.
‘It’s okay. It was a long time ago for me.’ Like yesterday. ‘I’m sorry about your mum.’ She knew that Tobias’s mother had suffered with severe, debilitating depression for a number of years, and had killed herself a couple of years earlier. ‘It must have been incredibly hard to lose her.’
He nodded barely perceptibly at this acknowledgement of his huge loss.
‘I’m really glad things are going well for you now, Tobias. Really glad.’
‘Thank you.’
Mak felt strangely touched by the conversation. She had touched a life. His life. All those silly private investigations with rotten cheating spouses and rip-off artists trying to pretend they had whiplash, and here she had really done something. She had changed a life in a tangible, positive way.
‘I’m not actually here to talk to you about all that stuff. I’m trying to find out about Adam Hart from down the street. You two are friends?’
‘A bit.’
A bit? ‘You know each other a little?’ she suggested.
He nodded, which could mean anything from close friendship to a single conversation.
‘When did you last see him?’
‘A while ago.’
‘A week ago?’ she pressed.
‘Longer.’
Mak felt fresh disappointment weigh on her. ‘How recently?’ she said, still trying.
He shrugged his shoulders again.
‘Was he in any trouble at home?’
He stuck his lip out and shook his head.
‘Are there any people you can think of who don’t like Adam? Enemies?’
He shrugged again.
‘Can you think of any reason why Adam would want to leave home, Tobias?’ She leaned in slightly, and watched his face carefully.
‘Again?’ Tobias asked, and Mak straightened up.
‘Yes. Again.’ Again? ‘When was the last time?’
‘With his girlfriend,’ he said, as if it were obvious.
Her heart sped up. ‘Oh, you mean…’ Makedde trailed off, and waited for him to fill in the blanks. After a few seconds of silence, he did exactly what she had hoped.
‘Patricia,’ Tobias said.
‘Yes, Patricia,’ she agreed, wondering who Patricia was and when she could speak to her. ‘What is her last name again?’
He looked blank. Perhaps he had never been told Patricia’s last name. She didn’t want to lose him on that point. Adam’s mother would certainly know who she was, but why hadn’t she told Mak about her, and that her son had left home before? Was it because she thought everyone would assume he had done the same thing again? That was, in fact, exactly what Mak was doing.
‘How long ago was that? It was only…’ She trailed off again, expectantly.
‘Ages ago.’
Perhaps yesterday was ages ago. It was hard to tell.
‘Since you moved here?’
He nodded. So less than a year ago.
‘And Adam told you about it?’
A nod.
‘Do you remember what he said?’
He shook his head, perhaps deciding he’d said too much.
‘Tobias, I noticed you’re on Facebook.’ She had done some internet searches. ‘You and Adam are friends on Facebook, aren’t you? Do you think you could hook him and me up? I wouldn’t get him in any trouble, I just want to chat with him. You know, he is nineteen, and if he doesn’t want to come home he doesn’t have to. I just want to chat.’
Tobias appeared to think about this for a while. ‘Sure, I can hook you two up. If he’s checking his messages and stuff.’
‘Oh, that would be very helpful. Thank you, Tobias.’
He perked up a little, and even offered a very small version of a smile. ‘What’s your handle?’
Mak blinked. Handle? ‘I’ll, uh, send you a message tomorrow, and we’ll do it that way. I’ll just go by my name.’ It was best to deal with these two honestly from step one. Anything else could be seen as disingenuous. She had to gain Adam’s trust.
‘Cool.’
‘Yes,’ Mak thought. Very cool.
CHAPTER 18
There is another man.
Andy Flynn sat at Jimmy’s kitchen table, resting heavily on his elbows. His face felt puffy and he thought his eyes might close up again at any moment. He had made an ill-advised stop at a pub in Surry Hills after Mak threw him out of her apartment, and when he had returned to her door he had seen another man arrive.
Him.
Andy did not know the man’s name, but he was familiar. He was some kind of rocker. Andy needed only to observe him approaching the apartment block at three in the morning to know that Mak was with him—that he was there for her.
He is the other man. That’s him. There had to be someone else, he had reasoned.
Andy was not a man who cried, bu
t driving back to Jimmy’s he had pulled the car over suddenly, and wept like a madman against the steering wheel on the side of the road. The experience had unnerved him, and no less now as he looked back on it after a few hours of broken sleep. He wondered if he had finally gone over the edge.
Cassandra, and now Makedde—the women you love—they leave you. They always leave you. You are cursed. You are poison…
‘You look like shit,’ Jimmy said. His mate was smiling at him as he spoke, but Andy spotted the look of genuine concern in his eyes.
‘Thanks. I’m sorry if I woke anyone. I got in pretty late.’
‘No, mate. Everyone in this house sleeps like the dead, except me,’ Jimmy told him. ‘I’ve never been much of a sleeper.’
Few cops were. The odd hours and the focus of the job gave a person plenty of reasons not to sleep well at night.
‘So what’s the deal? You bang her, or what?’
An image of Makedde’s arched back sprang to mind. ‘Shouldn’t you be at work already?’ Andy retorted.
‘You are the job,’ Jimmy said, in long-drawn-out syllables and a voice much deeper than his own natural tone. He pointed at his mate with an extended index finger, then pulled the ‘trigger’.‘Bang!’ He slapped his chubby hands together.
‘Yeah, some hitman you’d make,’ Andy murmured humourlessly.
‘I been already to headquarters and come back, mate.’
‘Jesus. I did wake late.’ He looked at the digital clock on the microwave and saw it was nearly nine.
‘Some of us have real jobs,’ Jimmy quipped, Andy’s job being of much higher rank, status and pay than his own.
‘Look, I gotta say, that cunt Hunt really jerks me off. He is very bloody interested in your Makedde.’
She’s not my Makedde now. If she ever was.
‘What do you mean?’ Andy asked.
Jimmy walked to a cupboard and pulled out a tin with a lock on it. ‘I mean he knows she’s back in town,’ Jimmy continued. ‘And he seems a little too interested.’
‘What do you mean by a little too interested? Like he wants to stalk her? Ask her out?’
‘Probably both.’ Jimmy pulled a ring of keys off his belt and opened the lock. He pulled a Mars bar out.